


Simply Spiffing

by MildredMost



Category: Horrible Histories
Genre: Boarding School, Bullying, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 00:50:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4646211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MildredMost/pseuds/MildredMost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maltravers has never had a friend at school, not really. Probably because he's not very good at Games. But then a new boy, Blenkinsop, arrives, and he's a thoroughly decent chap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simply Spiffing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aestivali](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aestivali/gifts).



I’m not the sort of chap who has lots of friends. Mother likes me most awfully, and my brothers think I’m alright, but other chaps aren’t too bothered about me. I think it’s because I’m absolutely hopeless at Games. School’s awfully rummy like that. 

I’m the third boy Mother has seen through school and she says I shouldn’t worry about any of it, and that all boys are absolute brutes, and that it’s just a matter of meeting another absolute brute who you rub along with alright. 

And she was quite right, but it wasn’t until I was in the Upper Fourth that I had a friend at all, really. 

The autumn term had only just begun when one of the English masters collared me in the hall after brekkie, and said “Maltravers. You’re an ornament of the Upper Fourth are you not?”

“Yes sir.” I noticed he had a boy with him. A new boy, a bit thin with dark hair and a nice sort of face. I’m hopeless at describing things, but you know the sort of face I mean; just jolly nice. _You_ know. 

“Good. You can take this new chap...what was your name, again?”

“B..Blenkinsop sir” said the new boy, and blinked rapidly. 

“Blenkinsop. Yes Maltravers, take him to your form room with you. Show him around a bit. Bathrooms, lockers, that sort of thing. Splendid.” And he marched off down the corridor, fast as anything. The new boy looked at me and I looked at him. 

“Hullo,” I said. 

“Hullo,” he said back. 

“Shall we go, then?” I said. It came out a bit abruptly, as if I were fed up or something. And I wasn’t fed up at all, I was just nervous for some reason. 

He nodded. 

“Thanks ever so for showing me round, Maltravers,” he said. “I know being landed with a new boy is a frightful pain. I...I won’t hang around you too much if you don’t like. It’s quite all right.”

I beamed at him, I couldn’t help it. He was such a decent sort. “Not at all Blenkinsop. It’s no trouble. We can sit together, if you’d like. In form I mean. There’s no one next to me.”

I didn’t tell him there was no one next to me because I had no friends and I was rubbish at Games. Anyway he didn’t seem like the sort of chap who’d mind about all that. 

“Yes, I’d like that,” he said. Then the bell rang for first lesson, so we had to scarper. 

“These are all the prefect’s studies,” I said as we hurried past the row of closed doors. “Keep away from study no. 4, they’re absolute beasts,” I said, and he opened his eyes wide, but didn’t say anything. Big brown eyes, I noticed, like our Labrador Monty at home. It made me like him even more, though I know that’s silly. 

It was Latin first thing and Blenkinsop sat beside me which was jolly decent of him I thought. And he was just as rotten at Latin as I am which was a relief, because it’s no fun being the only dunce. Latin was followed by Geography and the Geog. master was in a towering rage from the start, and then Blenkinsop didn’t know where Bosnia was, and Fotheringham buzzed an ink pellet across the room and it landed right on a map of the Andes which was old Parker’s pride and joy from when he was a lad, so the lesson had to stop for Fotheringham to be caned. 

At break Cartwright and Fotheringham wanted to have a fist fight about something or other (something had been said about someone’s sister and some more about someone else’s mother) so Manders Minor was sent to look out for passing teachers. The rest of us let them get on with it, but it wasn’t much of a fight in the end because we were interrupted. 

“ _Cave!_ ” Manders Minor from his lookout post at the door, “It’s Osbourne!”

Osbourne is a prefect and an absolute beast and a swine of the first order, and he, he _persecutes_ all of us in the lower school. We all absolutely _loathe_ him. Not that he cares. 

He swaggered into our form room. 

“How are all you ghastly little fags?” he said, and hit Manders Minor around the head just for nothing, and knocked his glasses off. Oh I hate Osbourne. I hate him more than...more than _anything._

“We need a couple of you for study no. 4,” he continued, strolling around the room, knocking a couple of ink pots over, and spoiling Cartwright’s Latin primer. “Place is a dreadful mess since the last fag left.”

None of us said anything to the beastly cad. We all knew why the last fag had gone - his people had taken him out of school after Osbourne and the rest had burnt him with a hot poker. I found him in our dormy after it happened. He was shaking all over, like our dog Monty when there’s a thunderstorm, and his hand was a dreadful mess. I put my arm around him which isn’t a very school thing to do but he didn’t mind it, and he cried a bit on my shoulder, but I never told anyone about that. And then I took him to matron, and we never saw him again. 

“If you volunteer it’ll go better for you,” said Osbourne. 

No one spoke. Osbourne looked at the ceiling like he was thinking, bounced on his heels, snorted a horrid laugh, then pounced. 

“How about you, Manders Minor?” he said, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck.

“I’m faggin’ for study no 5,” Manders said, and his eyes looked like they would pop. “I can’t go and fag for you, Osbourne, they’ll scrag me!” 

Osbourne flung him away and prowled further into the room. 

Blenkinsop was sitting on a desk, looking at Osbourne with a dreamy expression. The problem with Osbourne is that he’s terribly good looking, and it fools you into thinking he’s got a soul. And when he smiles at you you feel like you’d do anything for him, even when he’s crueler than, than, old Croesus. No wait, that’s richer isn’t it. Crueler than _Herod_ , then, that chap from the bible who had all the babies killed. Although Osbourne’s rich too, or at least his Pater is, which is why he got away with the business with the poker, so they say. 

I tried to signal to Blenkinsop by widening my eyes and shaking my head, but that only drew attention to me. 

“You,” said Osbourne, taking me by the hair. Gosh it hurt. “Bet you’re not fagging for anyone, lazy pudding like you. Now choose one of your revolting little friends too.”

How could I jolly well subject anyone to fagging for study no. 4? Not on your life. I kept quiet. 

“Go on,” said Osbourne, shaking me by the hair and bringing tears to my eyes, “Stop blubbing and name names, you little tick.”

“Stop it Osbourne, you’re jolly well hurting!” I said, but I should have kept my mouth shut, because then Osbourne knocked me over and began to drag me by the hair across the floor. 

“ _Wait_ , I’ll do it, I’ll fag for you,” said Blenkinsop. “Let go of him.”

Osbourne dropped me like a hot coal, and I blinked the tears out of my eyes. Blenkinsop was looking at me with a half smile on his face. Gosh he was a good egg, I thought. 

Osbourne looked from one of us to the other, a sneer on his horrid, handsome face. He nudged me with his foot. “See that you have the study in order by prep tonight, or you’ll know about it.”

“Yes, Osbourne,” I said. “Yes Osbourne,” Blenkinsop repeated. Osbourne looked sharply from one to the other of us in case we were making fun. Satisfied, he left. 

The room slumped with relief. 

“Ta ever so,” I said to Blenkinsop. 

“Don’t mention it,” said Blenkinsop. 

“I say,” said Cartwright, who was trying to mop up his Latin book, “That’s terribly hard luck on both of you. D’you think you’ll be alright?” 

“Oh yes,” I said heartily, because I didn’t want Blenkinsop to worry. It sounds like I was lying to him a rather lot doesn’t it? I do try not to lie on the whole, it makes me feel beastly. 

After dinner but before prep, I took Blenkinsop with me to study no.4 to get it over with. Osbourne wasn’t there, but Seymour was, and he’s almost as bad, and looks it too. He didn’t pay us much mind because he was looking at his spots in a hand mirror and squeezing them. 

The study was fairly disgusting: a jumble of sticky jam pots green with mould; a saucepan on the hearth that had the bottom almost burnt out of it; a pile of dirty boots; and stacks and stacks of ash and coal dust in all directions. So just the average prefect study really. I set Blenkinsop to blacking the boots, because really washing out greasy pots and heaving piles of ash around on your very first day isn’t really on, is it. 

But between the two of us we’d managed to get through the lot fast as you like, especially as Seymour didn’t interfere. 

But then Osbourne came through the door. 

I froze when he appeared and dropped the coal scuttle with a clatter, which was a dashed silly thing to do, but I can be dreadfully silly. Osbourne is just so jolly _frightening_. I expect you think I’m wet, but I’d like to see anyone who didn’t tremble a bit when Osbourne turns his eyes upon you. Like I said before, it wouldn’t be half as bad if he weren’t so handsome. 

“Idiot,” he said to me, in a bored way. He turned to Blenkinsop. “Come here.”

Blenkinsop flicked a quick look at me but I didn’t know what Osbourne was up to either so couldn’t help. 

“I expect you heard what happened to my last fag,” Osbourne said, and smiled at Blenkinsop in a way that made all the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. If I was Monty I’d have put my ears down and tucked my tail between my legs. 

“Yes, Osbourne.”

“And yet I’m still here. So just remember, I can do whatever I like.” 

Blenkinsop nodded slowly. And that was when Osbourne punched Blenkinsop in the face. 

Blenkinsop staggered. Osbourne laughed, and oh! That was just the giddy limit. 

“Leave him alone you b-beastly bully!” I said, jumping in front of Blenkinsop but he only laughed more. 

“Oh ‘b-beastly’ am I? Well if I am there’s nothing you can do about it. A word from my father in the ear of the Headmaster is enough to stop any trouble _you_ might try and get me in, so don’t bother trying. Get out, both of you. You’re boring me and stinking the place up.”

I steered Blenkinsop out of the room by holding his arm, and could feel he was shaking a bit. So was I. This was all my fault, I’d got us both into it, and on poor Blenkinsop’s very first day, too. 

He didn’t speak at all when we got back to our dormy, and I couldn’t think of anything to say either. It was all beastly. We both got into our beds in silence. Lights out came soon after, and I could feel rather than hear Blenkinsop shuddering with muffled sobs. And I vowed then that study no. 4 wasn’t going to get away with it. 

*****

 

That Saturday was an Old Boys vs The First Eleven match and my older brother Freddie was going to be there, which was spiffing. Freddie is my favourite brother, he’s so jolly pleasant, and he’s so clever you wouldn’t believe. Especially compared to an old dunderhead like me. But he never talks down to me like some clever chaps do, he’s a good egg in that regard. 

He spotted me in the crowd and made a beeline for me as soon as the match was over. 

“What ho, little brother,” he said heartily. “How goes it?”

“Hullo Freddie, it’s jolly decent to see you,” I said. 

“You look a little morose old chap,” he observed. “What’s up?”

I started to tell him all about Osbourne and Blenkinsop, but he stopped me. 

“Osbourne? That little tick? He used to fag for my study. By golly, he was wet. Always blubbing, just because we had a couple of tiny little pet rats in there.”

“Rats?”

“Gosh yes, he was terrified of them. He say it wasn’t sanitary and wouldn’t clean the study. Lazy little swine. Told the Headmaster and we had to get rid of them. Can’t believe he’s a prefect now.”

“Yes but Freddie, what can I _do_ about him?”

“Tell me the whole story.”

So I told him the whole thing, from the fag who got burned with the poker, to Osbourne pulling my hair, to Blenkinsop being punched. Freddie listened without interrupting and I knew he was taking me seriously, not like some grown-ups would. When I finished talking he blew a long low whistle and said “This Blenkinsop a good friend of yours?”

I nodded. “He hasn't been here very long, but he’s the nicest chap I know, Freddie, honestly.”

“Well you’re quite right, little brother. Something needs to be done about Osbourne and soon. Let me think a little.”

We sat down in the grass by the pitch for a while and I happily stayed quiet, because when Freddie is working on a scheme you don’t want to distract him. He’s absolutely marvellous at thinking things up, too. 

“There still a Natural History Club at school, George?” he said at last. George is my name, if you didn’t know, which I suppose you didn’t. 

“Yes.”

“And Osbourne is in study no.4 you say?”

I nodded and Freddie grinned. “Right,” he said. “Now listen carefully my dear fellow, because I have a plan.”

*****

“Cartwright, Blenkinsop and I are joining your Natural History Club,” I said the next day. 

“Well, that’s pretty average cool of you, I must say,” Cartwright said. 

“What do you mean?”

“I asked you to join the Club last term and you said you wouldn’t,” he said. 

“Well, I…”

“You said you didn’t fancy messin’ about filling your pockets with revolting little grubs,” he continued. 

“Gosh, I didn’t _mean_...”

“And you laughed when Clay made fun of my butterfly net,” he said, folding his arms. 

“I’m ever so sorry, Cartwright, but I do want to join now. _Pax_?” I said. I didn’t remember having taken against the Natural History Club quite so strongly.. 

“Oh all right then,” Cartwright said. “We’re going for a nature walk this afternoon if you’d like to come.”

“Oh, ripping!” said Blenkinsop and I at the same time. I nudged him and he nudged me back. Cartwright narrowed his eyes at us suspiciously, but said nothing else. We were in. 

It rained of course, that afternoon. Cartwright was one of those chaps who likes nothing better than lying in a soggy burrow watching newts mate, but give me a fireside without a sniff of fresh air any day. But Freddie’s instructions had been very clear. 

As soon as we could give Cartwright and the rest of the Natural History Club the slip, Blenkinsop and I headed for a tumbledown cottage on the edge of Major Johnson’s estate that bordered the school grounds. 

“D’you think he’ll be here?” asked Blenkinsop drawing a bit closer to me. It was all a bit unnerving. The place was in a dreadful state, and there was a vicious-sounding dog barking somewhere. 

“If Freddie says so, then he will,” I said. “I suppose we might have to wait around a bit.” I knocked quickly, before I had time to think about it too much. 

No answer. 

The heavens really opened then, and Blenkinsop and I squashed ourselves side by side in the doorway of the cottage, trying to get a bit of shelter. We were right up against each other but Blenkinsop didn’t seem to mind. I didn’t mind either, even when he put his hand on my arm to pull me further in out of the rain and left it there. Some boys are terribly funny about things like that but not me. It just felt _friendly._ You know.

Blenkinsop clutched at me suddenly. “Someone’s coming!” he whispered, and sure enough, a rather drenched looking figure approached us. 

“What you doing here?” he yelled, swinging his shotgun off his shoulder. “You bothering my dog?”

“No! We’re not! We’re...I’m Freddie’s brother, Freddie Maltravers sir!”

“Oh.” A grin spread across the gamekeeper’s weathered old face. “Freddie. All right. I owe him one. What’s he sent you for?”

“Rats.”

“Right. You better come in then.”

And that’s how Blenkinsop and I ended up back at school with the pockets of our Mackintosh’s full of sleeping rats. 

The gamekeeper kept a cage full of them because he quite liked the little blighters - just as Freddie had said - and had given them currants soaked in brandy to knock them out. “The missus was saving they currants for a Christmas pudding, but it works a treat on rats,” he said. “Doesn’t hurt ‘em. They’ll sleep for hours now.”

We borrowed a cage from Cartwright when we got back, claiming we needed it for a “specimen” and then put all but one of the rats in it. That one we took with us when we went to study no.4 to make those lazy beasts Osbourne and Seymour their supper. I pretended to be raking around in the coal scuttle and popped old ratty down behind it, nice and cozy beside the skirting board. Blenkinsop, who was making toast, glanced over at me barely able to conceal his glee, and then scattered a good amount of crumbs and things around for ratty to feast upon when he woke up. It was terrific fun being in on this joke with him, it wouldn’t have been half as jolly on my own. 

We left without getting rumbled, but the other fourth formers dragged us into a game of indoor rugby when we got back to the form room, so we couldn’t gloat together, even though I wanted to, dreadfully. 

But in the dormy that night, after lights out, I heard footsteps creep over to me, then a weight descend on my legs. “Maltravers,” Blenkinsop whispered. I sat up. “You alright old chap?” I said.

“Shhh, yes. I...wanted to tell you how, how jolly decent it is of you to go to all this trouble. When you hardly know me. My people are so far away, in India you know, and it's...it feels a bit beastly sometimes, when I've no one nearby and rotten things are happening.”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” I said. “But don't even mention it old bean. And I say, Blenkinsop...I feel like I’ve known you for ages and ages. Is that terribly strange?”

“No,” he said. “No. It’s the same for me.” He sat for a bit, silently, the way he does. He’s a quiet chap really, old Blenkinsop. “Well, good night then, Maltravers,” he said after a bit. He stood up and patted me...well I think he meant to pat me on the shoulder, but he missed in the dark and got me nearer the top of my leg. It made me feel quite strange, as if I couldn’t catch my breath. “Good night,” I sort of squeaked back, and burrowed back under the covers. 

*****

The chaos in study no.4 the next morning when we went to light the fire was _splendiferous._

For a start the furniture was tumbled everywhere. Seymour’s desk had been overturned with a pool of ink spreading under it, and every drawer was out of Osbourne’s and on the floor. The coal scuttle was upside-down, the tea things were smashed to smithereens, and Osbourne himself was standing on a chair, purple with rage. 

I gaped at him. 

“There. Is. A. RAT. In. Here,” Osbourne ground out. “And you disgusting, lazy, sluttish little fags are to blame.” He pelted one of his boots right at us, and caught me on the shoulder, the swine. He meant it for my face of course, but his hands were shaking so much he couldn’t aim. Oh, OH, it was worth the bruise on the shoulder to see him in such a state! Freddie was an absolute marvel.

For a whole week we put rat after rat into Osbourne’s study. At first he was furious. Then he became subdued, followed by paranoid and suspicious. You could tell he wasn’t getting much sleep. What was even more glorious was that Seymour never once saw one of the rats, so thought Osbourne was going potty and said so. Their arguments were dreadfully funny. Eventually he stormed off to the Head to complain. Cartwright heard the whole thing because Osbourne came right into the Head’s study just as Cartwright was getting six of the best for cheating in a maths test, and had to wait, leant over the armchair with his bottom in the air, for ten whole minutes while Osbourne raged. 

The only fly in the ointment was that none of it stopped him making our lives a misery. Especially Blenkinsop, who he was absolutely rotten to and blacked his eye twice in one week. 

I wrote to Freddie in desperation. 

“Dear Freddie, have been lettin rats run riot in study no.4, Osb. going barmy but still thumping us regular as clockwork, specially B. Wot now? Pip pip, George.”

Freddie replied by return of post. “Don’t despair small brother, sending reinforcements. Not having some little tick bullying a Maltravers. Await my instructions.”

I didn’t hear anything from him for a week after that, so we stopped Operation Rat for the time being, and Osbourne started swaggering around again, and getting crueler and crueler to Blenkinsop, making fun of him and knocking him down whenever he felt like it. Sometimes I almost cried I felt so angry about it all. But I knew Freddie wouldn’t let us down, so I bit my tongue and waited it out. 

And he didn’t. He sent me a letter with a glorious plan in it; I just wasn’t sure how or when we were going to pull it off. But I was determined I would get justice for Blenkinsop. 

The when came within a couple of days, when Osbourne was supervising us Upper Fourths for prep, which mean the usual mental torture and random violence.

A boy from the Upper Third poked his face around the door of the form room. 

“Sorry Osbourne. The head wants Maltravers,” he squeaked. Blenkinsop glanced over at me, eyes wide. Osbourne casually buzzed a board eraser at the boy’s head and the boy ducked out again. “Go on then,” he said to me, weighing another in his hand; I knew he’d try and hit me with it as I left, so I ran and felt it whizz by my left ear. 

My mind raced as I ran down to the Head’s study. The door was open when I got there, and I stood in the doorway nervously. The Headmaster beckoned me in and I realised he wasn’t alone; the gamekeeper was with him. 

“Ah, Maltravers. This fellow here is the gamekeeper from Major Johnson’s estate. He says you and another boy have been hanging around outside his cottage. Is this true?” 

“I...we were...it was the Natural History Club sir. We were observing birds nesting.”

The gamekeeper turned round then, but it wasn’t him at all. It was another, much younger chap, wearing the gamekeeper’s coat. I felt my mouth drop open like a codfish, but then the chap winked at me and I closed it again. This smelt of Freddie, through and through. 

He came over and took me by the arming, shaking me a bit. “I’ve had enough of you boys, thinking you can do whatever you like,” he said. He poked a finger into my chest, and at the same time, slipped a note into my hand. “Just see that you stay away.”

“Yes sir. Sorry sir.”

The Head nodded. “See that you do, Maltravers. Although your enthusiasm for Natural History is admirable. Now buzz off back to prep please.”

I buzzed. Or at least I buzzed around the corner so I could read the note. It said: “This is my friend Algernon. He is going to bring the headmaster up to study no.4 after prep, so do what I told you in my previous letter. Freddie.”

Good old Freddie. I managed to stall outside our form room until I heard the bell for the end of Prep and Blenkinsop came rushing out of the class and grabbed me. 

“What did the Head want you for? Is he on to us?” he said. 

“No - it was a letter from Freddie. Look, Osbourne will be expecting us in his study, I’ll explain on the way.”

We went via the dormy and I tucked the last poor old rat into my blazer pocket as usual. I’d got quite attached to this fellow, seeing as I’d had him a fortnight now and he was tame as anything. But he had to be sacrificed for the cause. 

Osbourne ignored us when we arrived in the study, and we kept our heads down. I bent to clean out the fire, and let ratty out and chucked a crumb of cheese across the room. 

Ratty streaked across the room, and like an absolute trooper, got hold of the cheese, _then climbed onto Osbourne’s desk to eat it._

Osbourne glanced up, and I really rather thought he was going to drop dead. First his face went deathly pale, then it slowly went mottled red. 

“There’s...there…” his usual loud confident voice was barely a squeak. Ratty casually finished up his cheese and strolled off down the back of the desk.

“RAT,” Osbourne managed at last. “RAT.” He staggered up from his desk and took hold of Seymour’s arm, shaking him. 

Seymour looked uncomfortable. “Not this again. There’s nothing _there_ old chap.”

“I am not seeing things, there was a RAT. JUST. NOW!” He rounded on me and Blenkinsop. “ _You_ must have seen it?”

“No, Osbourne,” said Blenkinsop. He’s terribly good at looking blank, I must say. I felt quite proud of him. Osbourne gave him an impatient shove. “Useless,” he said. 

“My brother Freddie says the best way to deal with a rat is with a poker,” I said. “He says you should wave it around a lot, it hypnotises them or something.”

“What rot,” said Osbourne grabbing the poker anyway and swishing it around like a fencing foil. 

I could hear voices approaching along the corridor, but Osbourne didn’t notice.

“Very kind of you to offer to take a look. This is the study we’re having problems with...”

Old ratty reappeared in the middle of the room, and sat on his haunches, eyeing us beadily.

Osbourne lifted the poker above his head. 

At that moment I dropped a well timed crumb of cheese. Ratty leapt for it, running over Osbourne’s foot in the process. I pretended to be frightened and threw up my arms with a shout, jogging Osbourne’s elbow so he couldn’t get a clear hit at Ratty. 

“ _You little shit, Maltravers!_ ” 

“... well it’s best to nip it in the bud as soon as you can with rats,” said a voice from the corridor.

I flung myself to the floor beneath Osbourne and threw up an arm in front of my face. 

“ _Please_ , Osbourne, don’t!” I cried, with a good amount of fake blub in my voice, as Freddie had advised, just as the Headmaster and the gamekeeper pushed the door of the study open. 

And that is how the Headmaster caught Osbourne threatening his second junior that year with a poker. 

Osbourne was asked to leave then, of course. Had to be, really. I heard his father pulled some strings and got him into Sandhurst though, which he’ll love because of all the shooting and shouting at people and he’ll probably become a horrid General with a splendid moustache, sending his men off to die without a twinge of remorse. 

Freddie told Mother not to ask any questions, but to send one of her fruitiest fruit cakes to his friend, Algernon Spiffle. Which she did. She sent one to me and Blenkinsop too, with a bottle of her homemade damson wine for Blenkinsop because I stupidly described him as skinny once and now she’s trying to feed him up. She thinks her wine is medicinal, but really it blows your socks off and you just _think_ you feel better. “Do not share this with anyone else,” said her letter. “I don’t know what the little beasts you go to school with have been up to, but they are not to mess with your tuck box. Tell Blenkinsop he’s to come to us for Christmas and not to bother arguing. I’ve cleared it with his mother.” 

There’s nothing that gets mother’s goat more than other boys eating my tuck. She says she can deal with the thought of the cold baths and the Latin verbs and the caning, as long as she knows I’m being fed alright. 

That Saturday - the last one before we broke up for winter hols - most of the school was at a football house-match, but I was hanging about in the dormy because I’d been sent to look for Blenkinsop and couldn’t find him, and I loathe watching freezing cold football matches so I was dragging my heels a bit. I couldn't find the blighter anywhere. Eventually I risked yelling “Blenkinsop!” to save time, even though yelling usually means an order mark. “Where are you old chap?”

“Maltravers,” I heard an urgent whisper. “I’m in here.”

I looked around. Our dormy was right up under the roof, and the plaster had come away from the wall at the end of the room, because it’s so beastly damp I suppose. Anyhow, all I could see was some timber beams and darkness. 

Blenkinsop’s face appeared from behind a beam. “There’s a space in here, under the eaves. No one can see you. Come in.”

“I won’t _fit_ Blenkinsop, I’m too beastly fat,” I said, feeling myself flushing up, but went over anyway. 

“No you’re not, I’ll budge up.” And he took me firmly by the wrist and pulled me down beside him.

I wasn’t sure why we were in there, but it felt jolly nice sitting shoulder to shoulder with him. He had the damson wine from Mother and he gave me some and then took a drink from it himself. I watched his Adam’s apple rise and fall as he swallowed. He shifted a little. 

“It’s cold as Christmas in here, old bean,” I whispered. “Are we hiding from someone?”

“Yes,” he grinned. “Everyone else. I’m celebrating the end of term.”

“They sent me to find you to come to the house-match,” I said, taking another slug of wine. I felt a lovely warm sort of glow spread down my throat. 

“Rah rah school,” he said. But in that way people do when they don’t mean the thing they’re saying, so I laughed. 

We sat quietly for a bit. I say quietly but I could hear my heart thundering like a cavalry charge for some reason. It really was rummy. 

“Maltravers, I hope you know what a good egg I think you are,” Blenkinsop burst out suddenly. “Fixing everything with Osbourne and all that.”

“Not at all old bean. That’s what best friends are for. I mean,” I said, “we _are_ best friends, aren’t we?”

“Oh, _rather_.”

And then Blenkinsop took my hand. 

His hand was lovely and warm, not like my icy paw, and he squeezed it quite hard. 

“Gosh you really are cold, aren’t you,” he said. I nodded because I couldn’t speak. And then I didn’t have to speak, because he kissed me on the cheek, and when I turned to look at him he kissed me right on the mouth and it was smashing. I know I should describe it all and how his lips were warm and his eyes were closed and how he put his arms around me and how I felt white hot inside - but I’m no good at that sort of thing, you only need to read one of my English compositions to see that. It was _ripping_ , though, absolutely _ripping_. 

Once we’d finished doing that - and we did it for quite a long time, and really got rather good at it - we heard a racket going on outside. I scrambled out of our hidey hole and peered out of the window. 

Osbourne was leaving and by golly his father was raking him over the coals like a good ‘un. It was really very jolly to watch Osbourne getting read the riot act right in the school driveway in front of the Headmaster. To top it off, Osbourne was blubbing like mad. It was simply spiffing. Blenkinsop watched too, with his arm around my waist and his chin on my shoulder, chuckling into my neck.

Osbourne’s father finally bundled him into the Bentley, still sobbing. I felt like giving a war whoop and racing around the room. Instead I wrapped my arms around Blenkinsop. 

“Nobody,” I said, as I started kissing him very thoroughly all over again, “Punches _you_ and gets away with it.”

And they never did.


End file.
